


Stay Alive

by holycheerbatman



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman and Robin (Comics), Grayson (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Robin (Comics)
Genre: DaddyBats, Depression, Other, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-17
Updated: 2015-01-17
Packaged: 2018-03-07 21:13:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3183392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holycheerbatman/pseuds/holycheerbatman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is what he wanted.</p><p>This is what he needed.</p><p> </p><p>My one-shot at a mentally unstable Dick Grayson and a worried Bruce Wayne</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay Alive

Stay Alive

It was simple. He should’ve seen it coming. After all the training, all the work, and everything from the names he was called at school to the cold shoulders 

Bruce gave him, this was the one thing that killed him. The only thing that could kill him.

Himself

Dick stood, staring in the mirror at the reflection back at him. The way those sad blue eyes stared made it seem like he was looking for something else, something behind his reflection. 

And perhaps he was. A hope he had long ago lost, a dream that seemed more distant now than a soldier from his family in war. Dick stared and sighed. What could he ever know about a soldier in a war? How could he ever understand?

But silently Dick knew. Dick knew he did understand. He knew the same hopelessness felt by warriors on the dawn of a red sun. He knew the loneliness of going home without friends or simply never having any. He knew what it was like to have everything in one place and suddenly loose it all.

Dick understood.

The way the sun never shone so bright anymore. The way the words stung like cuts. The way the cuts bleed like sharpie through a tissue. The way the night doesn’t end when there isn’t any hope for the morning. The way night can be so harsh yet stunningly beautiful because in the night…

In the night, people don’t lie.

The dark pulls out themselves, as they try to hide their truth from the world by running to nightclubs, beds, drugs, or the light. 

Dick knew.

Because you can’t wear a disguise and fool anyone when no one can see you.

Dick sighed and looked down at the sink. He hadn’t told anyone what he was about to do, or how he was about to do it, yet against all odds dick stood there wishing someone would know. Somehow they would know and they would understand and they would care! Somehow there had to be someone. There had to be!...

Because if there wasn’t…

If there wasn’t…would anyone care?

When a teenager falls from the tightrope balancing act of one part school work, two parts social anxiety, and three parts “you’ll get out of it”,  
do they make a sound?

They had to. There had to be something there to stop them, to make them realize this wasn’t how the story’s written, that this isn’t the end of the book, just merely the beginning of the novel…

There had to be someone.

 

Please, let there be someone…

The tears slid easily from his eyes like the names flowed from the mouths of kids who could never understand. 

How could they understand? When the people in charge cared more about a letter on a paper than the mind behind the grade, when the number on the scale meant what table you were allowed to sit at, when the way people saw you determined if you could follow your dreams or..

Or if you fell.

Dick knew a lot about falling. 

In a sick sense, the space between the leap and the landing were more home to him than the four walls surrounding him. Dick’s eyes moved from the sink to the window as he slowly did the math of a word problem no textbook would publish. The skills he learned in solitude now being used as a weapon against himself.

He pushed it open, the night air calling to him like a child calls to his deceased mother.

No one came through the door. No one came running. No one knew. No one understood.

Dick slid out the window and into the arms of the night. His stomach twisting, nerves and relief washing over him like a sickeningly sweet dream. This was what he wanted. This was what he needed.

The door burst open, a man still only partially changed from his business suit tore through the room like an angry tornado. The words that spilt from his mouth washed over deaf ears as Dick stared at the land below.

Home.  
The space between the leap and the landing.  
Home.  
The house behind him.  
Home.  
The man, his mentor, his partner, his father, Bruce.  
Home.  
The arms that wrapped around his chest and pulled him inside with a brute force Dick had never felt nor Bruce ever used. Dick felt his eyes pull for tears that would never come. His eyes were dry yet he wanted nothing more than to cry. He was drowning yet there was no water. 

But…he wasn’t drowning…there was something to stop him…there was something there…someone had come…someone had understood.

Someone knew.

Someone came.

Solitude wasn’t solitude.

Somehow, someone cared.

He put his head back on the strong chest behind him and closed his blue eyes, letting the hope wash over him and welcome him home.

This is what he wanted.

This is what he needed.

Home, the space between the arms of the people you love.


End file.
